Symbolic Constant
by LithiumDoll
Summary: Here's the thing about constants: their value never changes
1. Chapter 1

****For:** **BatchSan for Apocalyptothon 2014**  
>Note: <strong>this is darkfic (Apocalypse and all), but the ending is happy - honest!**  
>Thank you: <strong>the ridiculously fantastic sabaceanbabe, doccy and jebbypal, who are the best betas in the entire world. Any remaining errors are entirely my fault, because I wouldn't stop poking the fricking thing.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> Always appreciated!

* * *

><p>During the day the rain was warm and heavy, falling from immense gray clouds that crowded the sky until there wasn't a trace of blue. At night it was worse: rain turned to shards of hail, sharp enough to slice skin. The city was protected – some even said it was the reason – but beyond that, you were on your own.<p>

Irrelevant, the old man had said, and laughed until he'd choked.

Rory was bundled three layers deep in leather and denim, a thick canvas hood pulled low over her face, a scarf pulled high, and with uncomfortable goggles protecting her eyes. Her mothers worried. Otherwise, she gave the hail no mind. It was just another thing to tune out, like crying babies, like hunger, like the rumble of old generators and the hiss of static.

She crouched in the alley across the street from the darkened warehouse and tried to see any signs of movement. Nothing, at first, and then a weak, bobbing light that appeared in window after window. Her breath caught: this was real. This was _happening_.

The electronic signature of the flashlight was well below the alert parameters of the drones, but they were up there. Somewhere. She couldn't see them and definitely wasn't going to risk looking, but she could hear the whine as they swept back and forth along their routes.

Terror and excitement fluttered in her chest, with pride wedged awkwardly between the two. Her breath came in short pants, but her hands were barely shaking. Evie and Ry couldn't tease her now. They'd be so –

"Move." The instruction was distorted with static, but still audible. "Now."

She hesitated before she scurried out into the open, but only for a moment.

Only ever for a moment.

- o - o - o -

The perimeter search had taken Shaw some fifty feet to the north, Harold estimated. He could just, _just_ make out the faint glow of her flashlight, and very little else. It was practically pitch-black where he and Reese waited, with their backs to the wall and the dubious cover of a few broken up crates in front of them.

Well, with Harold's back to the wall, at least. Reese's back was to Harold as he stood guard with their only gun. He held it braced with both hands, the barrel level and almost completely still.

Harold studied the cell phone he'd found in his pocket after they'd - _awoken_, he supposed, although the flood of sudden awareness had seemed more artificial. It was their single source of illumination without the flashlight, and _his_ single source of immense irritation. "I still can't connect to a network." His voice sounded scratchy and unused, even at a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Or, more accurately, I can't find one. We must be in a dead zone."

Reese gave a soft hum of acknowledgement, but didn't reply. Without sight, he had to rely on sound. Of course. Harold resolved not to speak again until Shaw gave the all clear.

His attention returned to the phone's display. It was an older model HTC and not one of his own, although his applications – even the more _specialized_ ones - had been duplicated in their entirety.

The battery was almost full, but the hours and minutes of the clock held at zeros. Only the seconds ticked over, counted their way to the new day, again and again. The RTC circuit was obviously broken, which shouldn't have disturbed him in the least, except that he couldn't help the utterly irrational feeling that, if the clock would just tick past midnight, everything would begin to make sense.

Shaw's exclamation was almost inaudible over the rain hammering against the metal roof; she sounded more bemused than concerned. Harold stayed where he was, but didn't miss the way that Reese's shoulders relaxed and the barrel of the gun dipped.

The all clear, then – or close enough to make no difference. Harold cleared his throat again and pitched his voice to carry this time. "Have you found the door, Ms. Shaw?"

No reply.

He fidgeted for the count of five and then tried again. "_Ms. Shaw?_"

"Give her a moment," Reese murmured, without any particular concern.

Shaw had been equally as composed when she'd walked away, even though the tiny beam of her pocket flashlight had barely given any kind of shape to the darkness. She'd been very nearly silent then, but her footsteps were carelessly loud as she returned, with the thin light sweeping here and there.

Abruptly, Reese stood down and moved to the side. Finch let out a breath and stepped away from the wall, tucking the useless cell into his pocket as Shaw joined them.

"I found the door," she said, angling the flashlight up to give the most illumination and casting them in planes of light and dark.

"And then went through it?" Reese raised an eyebrow in polite enquiry, nothing more – probably because he would have done exactly the same.

"Couldn't see a damn thing. There's no light out there and we got a hailstorm." She turned her cheek to the light. A tiny scratch under her eye glinted black where a bead of blood had welled and gone no further. "We're going to need cover. And there's this … whining sound." Her gaze slid away, the only hint of unease. "You boys remember anything yet? 'Cause I got nothing."

Reese shook his head. "Nothing since this morning. If it was this morning," he added, which Harold felt he could have done without.

"I'm afraid not," he said for his own part, and then frowned. "I do hope Bear is all right." He was still watching Shaw. There was something in her expression; he tried to gain some measure of – ah. "What else did you find?"

"Single story warehouse, like we figured - maybe five thousand square feet. No internal division. One external door on the north wall; the lock looks like it was broken recently.

"The crates are empty - most of them have been smashed, but it was a long time ago. I don't think anyone's been in here for years. Decades, maybe." Her mouth twisted, as if the words tasted unpleasant. "Except for the … containers."

Intrigued, Harold tilted his head. "What sort of containers?"

"Pods." Shaw looked back almost defiantly. "And I know how this sounds, okay? But it was like in the movie. The one where the computer went crazy and killed everyone, providing important moral and societal warnings for us all?"

While Reese indulged (and, Harold hoped, had quietly come to enjoy) the occasional forays into the world of classic cinema, Shaw had accompanied them exactly once. In hindsight, his film choice had probably been ill considered.

"Two-thousand One?" he asked, with some trepidation.

"Uh huh. There are four pods, right in the middle of the warehouse. They're open and there's no dust inside."

Reese reached for the flashlight and Shaw allowed him to take it without comment; that should have been Harold's first warning. As it was, when the beam held on the patch of floor that led to the center of the warehouse, it took him a long moment to parse what he was seeing.

The light flickered, leaving the imprint of the floor across his vision. Of the drag marks in the dust.

"Oh." He brushed at his sleeve.

"So it's time to go, right?" Shaw said.

Reese didn't move, except to hand the flashlight back. "Go where? This is the only defensible position we know about, and we have no idea who's out there. We need more information."

"Which we'll get on the way." Shaw's tone was eminently reasonable, which often meant she was about to do something at least marginally horrifying, but on this occasion Harold had to admit he couldn't see an alternative. That didn't mean that Reese didn't have an excellent point.

"Please see what you can find outside, Mr. Reese," he temporized. "Ms. Shaw and I will investigate the containers."

Reese gave Shaw a long look – a moment of silent communication that Harold was not invited to join. Nonetheless, he believed he caught the gist. "We'll be fine," he interjected. "If we were in the pods – and that's certainly not a forgone conclusion – whoever removed us is unlikely to go to the trouble just to kill us now. I hope."

"You keep thinking that, Finch." Reese turned, heading for the exit. "The groundless optimism's why we work here."

- o - o - o -

"Stay."

"I can see the door," Rory pressed. "I can make it."

She was well hidden by the husk of an old car, abandoned so long ago the rust had eaten away almost all of the paint, but that didn't stop the itch between her shoulder blades every time a drone passed overhead.

"Stay."

"_Fine_." She ducked her head, scowling.

"You know your face will freeze that way," the voice in her ear teased. "Move. Now. _Quickly_."

Almost doubled over, she ran as fast as she could for the warehouse door, eyes trained on ground that was treacherous with rusted metal and chunks of brick and concrete. She jumped and swerved without losing much speed - it wasn't so different to running along the beams at home, or diving away from the occasional falling brick.

She didn't stop until she hit the metal siding; the breath rushed from her with as much relief as the force of impact. Sure, the metal groaned, but she didn't think anyone would hear it above the sound of the hail. One hand extended along the siding, she felt her way step by step towards the door.

Her gloved fingers fumbled against the frame, reached for the handle and found empty space.

A man's voice came from somewhere inside the spilling shadows of the warehouse. "You're good," it said. "I almost didn't hear you coming. Finish wasn't great, though."

She clamped her hands over her mouth; the drones were on a passive patrol, but a shriek would definitely bring them down.

"Give him an ear bud," said the voice. "You'll be just fine, Rory. I promise."

Rory swallowed. "Please don't shoot me," she squeaked, despite her best efforts to sound like anything _except_ a scared kid. "She wants me to give you something. It's in my pocket."

"He's not going to shoot you," said the voice, half a beat ahead of the man promising the same. He took half a step forward and the outline of a shape resolved into a tall figure in a rumpled suit and long coat.

Reese. This was _Reese_. Her mothers, depending which she asked, had described him as kind, but dangerous. Dull, but obedient. The old man called him a pain in the ass, but he said that about everyone.

She added 'wary' as his gaze darted behind her, then up above.

Tentatively, she held an ear bud out to him; his fingers brushed hesitantly against hers when he reached for it, as if he was searching by touch, not sight.

He couldn't see as well as she could in the dark, she realized. Just like the ones who escaped the cities. "H-here," she stuttered and caught his fingers with hers, dropped the bud in his palm. His smile of thanks was wry, barely more than a tick at the corner of his mouth, but it seemed … real.

She added 'human' and smiled in return, even if he couldn't see it.

"It's me, John," the voice said over the shared channel.

Reese drew a sharp breath and straightened into sharp lines of rage; his eyes glinted with it and they were looking straight at her.

She added '_terrifying_' and stumbled back, out from under the overhang of the warehouse roof and fully exposed to the drones above.

"Rory!" the voice cried. "_John_ – _please!_"

Fingers dug into her shoulders yanked her back under cover. Reese hissed as the hail tore into his bare skin.

"I'm sorry." She stared at his bloodied hands and then jerked her head up. It should have been Evie, Evie would have done everything right and _she_ was doing everything wrong. "I'm_ sorry_!"

"It's okay – Rory? It's okay." Reese relaxed his grip, but didn't let go as he crouched to bring their heights closer in line. She guessed his eyes were adjusting, because he caught her gaze when he looked up at her, then tried an encouraging smile. "Can you tell me what's out there, Rory?"

The voice interrupted before she could scrabble together any kind of answer. "Samaritan. It knows you're there. Find Harold and Shaw and get out. Rory knows where to go."

"Even Decima isn't this sick. Who are you?" Rory could still hear the snap of anger his voice as he stood, but he was gentle when he tugged on her arm and steered her into the warehouse. She half ran to keep up with the pace of his stride, skidding here and there on the dust.

"Remember how we met? I asked you for your name and you said 'the only time you needed a name now is when you're in trouble.' But I know what you're thinking: that's on a server somewhere, right? You think that kiss is? I hope not. I'm an old-fashioned girl – I like a _little_ privacy."

Reese was silent for so long that Rory glanced up, afraid of what she would see. Pain and hope battled over his expression, but both were losing ground to an empty, unforgiving coldness.

"It's me, John," the voice whispered. "It's _me_."

It was ignored.

- o - o - o -

While Finch bent over the chrome pods, Sam stood back and kept watch. Her ribs ached. They ached like her knee still ached sometimes: in a way that pushed right on into pain. Gunshot wounds would do that to you, but she'd never been shot in the chest – not that she remembered anyway.

Yesterday she would have been sure. Today…

Had to be something to do with the containers. Pods. Whatever.

Finch was holding himself stiffly as he poked cautiously at the dusty buttons. There was no power; it was all just so much metal and plastic, waiting for scrap. He pushed hard against the front panel, then tugged. The cover fell away, exposing a thick nest of twisting wires and circuit boards.

She peered over his shoulder. "Look familiar?"

"I've never seen anything like it." He reached into the guts and pulled out a handful of cables. Squinting at the connectors, he shook his head. "I need my tools. We should get back to the library."

She took the board he handed her and stuffed it inside her jacket. "How long you think we were in them?"

"We still don't know we were." Finch looked up and then climbed awkwardly to his feet. "But it's probable," he admitted, and then bent again to carefully pull something from the cushioned interior with the tips of his fingers. A hair. Too long to be one of hers.

"At least a day, if this stiffness is indicative of anything."

Sam nodded, that sounded about right. "No more than thirty-six hours, or we'd be a lot more dehy-" Two pairs of feet, coming in fast. Running. She spun, reaching for a gun she didn't have and cursing under her breath.

"It's me," Reese said as he appeared around the side of the crates. "And … an interested third party. Or two. This is Rory."

She narrowed her eyes and made out the shape of the second figure, so small it was almost hidden behind Reese. She, or he, was bundled in layers of clothing, only the eyes were visible: wide and darting from side to side. Familiar eyes. Sam glanced at Finch.

"She sent me to get you," said Rory, voice young and high, though there was a rasp at the edges. From illness or maybe because she – Sam was sure it was a girl now – was trying to breathe through half her wardrobe.

Finch cocked his head. "_She_ sent you?"

"Someone who wants us to think they're Carter," Reese supplied, when Rory didn't reply.

"Why on Earth would someone try and make us believe they were Detective Carter?" Finch blinked in incomprehension, looking from Reese to Rory and then back again.

"I'm guessing Rory knows." Sam stepped forward, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Finch wanted her to make more of an effort to appear friendly. She could do that. Rory took a step back anyway; kids were always so much more observant.

Reese's hand dropped on her shoulder, she shook it off as Finch stepped in front of them both. "My name is Harold. Harold-"

"Finch," Rory said. "I know who you are. Everyone … we know. But we have to…" Rory waved in the direction of the door. "It's _coming._"

Finch glanced back, apparently looking for opinions. Shaw shrugged; Reese said nothing. He nodded and turned back. "Then we should leave."

"Wait." Sam nodded at the pods. "There are _four_."

"She says there always are." Rory whispered, not meeting her eyes.

- o - o - o -

The old man had told her – told all the kids – stories about them. Every night he'd sit in the rickety old chair next to the main generator as the children gathered around, then pretend he was too busy. Too tired. That he didn't remember. He'd tease until they were giggling and red in the face before he'd relent and agree to tell just one story. Then usually told three.

The stories weren't true, Ry said when they turned ten. The old man was making it all up and, _anyway_, Rory and Evie were babies for believing any of it. And, _anyway_, there was no way the old man really knew about them, because he wasn't _that_ old. Not like Rory's mothers.

Evie had agreed with Ry, because she usually did unless she was bored and wanted to pick a fight. Rory hadn't said a word. The next day Evie had gone to train with the hunters and Ry with the technicians, and she had been left behind. No matter how much she'd pleaded or sulked or reasoned, her mothers wouldn't let her go. She'd stopped listening to the old man's stories for months after that.

Then, a week ago, her mothers had told her she had a special task and there had been no need for stories at all.

The whine of the drones was much louder as they came lower, even over the sound of hail on the protective piece of siding that Reese and Shaw had stripped from inside the warehouse. Worse, she was the only one her mother was talking to. The buds weren't safe to use when the drones switched to an active scan, but her implant would never be detected. Her mothers had promised.

"_Stay_."

She stopped instantly and felt a bump against her back as Shaw, behind her, wasn't quite so quick. There was another, even lighter push as, behind Shaw, Finch stumbled. She heard his muttered thanks and guessed that Reese, at the back, had righted him.

It was a very different thing, Rory thought, to hear the old man's accounts of thrilling rescues and escapes, than to have the characters come to life as they made their way in long pauses and short bursts across the ground of the parking lot. Not disappointing, exactly, but not at all like she'd imagined either.

"So. Rory." Shaw was silent for long enough that Rory wondered if that was it, then. "The name Root mean anything to you?"

Rory gnawed at the inside of her cheek; her mothers had been very clear about this. "No," she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. "Is she your friend?"

Shaw knew she was lying. Even without looking she just _knew_ Shaw knew she was lying. And Shaw said nothing at all for so long that the cold shiver running up Rory's spine had nothing to do with the drones.

"Just curious." Shaw said at last, tone just as indifferent as before.

"Uhm. Okay. I think we –"

The hiss in her ear changed its timbre from the background whisper of her mother to a low, jagged squeal. "M-_Ssss-_ta_-a-ay_."

Her chest tightened and her breath stuttered; she'd only heard that sound once before. When she was very young and her mothers were teaching her … something. She'd screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat was raw. The old man had lifted her in his arms, she dimly remembered, cursing her mothers and rocking her until ... she didn't remember any more.

Now there was no one to hold her, no one who would make it stop. She wanted to claw it out of her skull, but it went on and on and –

"Rory!" There were hands each side of her head; she blinked away tears and saw Finch's anxious expression. The drones were so low she could hear the beeping as communications came to life.

"It found us," she whispered. "It's listening. The drones are active."

"I see. Well, I think we can do something about that." Finch patted the sides of his coat and then pulled a thin, palm-sized piece of plastic from his pocket. Rory stared, terror briefly overcome by curiosity. A cell phone. The old man had described them, but she'd never actually seen one.

His head bent over the cell as his fingers danced over the screen. "As the Central Intelligence Agency has discovered, to its chagrin, drones require frequent, minute adjustments in navigation. Navigation, of course, requires communication. Communication requires a network and networks…"

"Can be hacked," Reese finished for him. "Can you bring them down?"

"A burner isn't the _ideal_ platform from which to hack military-grade encryption, Mr. Reese. However, I believe I can give the drones' GPS a bit of a... nudge. And, more importantly, jam the signal Rory's receiving. At least temporarily." He frowned in concentration, tapped again and Rory gasped as the intermittently roaring static stopped, leaving only the comforting background hiss.

Above them, she could hear the whine of the drones fading away as well, returning to their positions high up in the sky.

"Move," her mother said.

-o-o-o-

The last push across the lot took them to a tall, rusted chain-link fence surrounding what seemed to be wasteland. The cracked paths beyond the fence cut through in patterns that suggested it might once have been a park. Any trees that might have grown there were long gone, but here and there were patches of moss that could almost be mistaken for grass.

Life, still somehow clinging on.

There was probably, Harold decided, no longer a great deal of point in fantasizing they'd somehow been transported far from New York. Not when he could see the corroded remains of a sign with some letters still legible. B-R-TT- PA-K. Barretto Park. They were in Hunts Point.

Which meant that the main bulk of the Bronx, which they certainly should have been able to see, was dark. That _New York_ was dark. And, he suspected, had been dark for a long, long time. He raised his head to see both Reese and Shaw staring that the same sign, expressions unreadable.

Rory found a hole in the fence and, with some contortions and a few bruises, they managed to make it through with minimal exposure to the hail. It softened to heavy rain when they were only a few feet into the park. Abandoning the metal sheet was certainly a relief, but Harold found that short-lived as the mud underfoot deepened, sucking at every step.

There was barely a moment to catch his breath before they were running again. Staggering, more-like. Rather than the stiffness easing as they moved, the activity seemed to be exacerbating it. At his side, Shaw stumbled and then stopped. She bent over, holding her knee. "This is familiar," she muttered, sounding more angry than pained.

"Try not to get shot this time," Reese said, and held out an arm. A few feet later, with white-hot lines of pain shooting from first vertebrae to last, Harold found himself forced to accept the support of Reese's other shoulder.

"I wasn't trying to get shot the first time," Shaw huffed as they started moving again. "Besides. Now I have a shield. It's a little difficult to keep a hold of, and it lies a lot, but I think it should be good to catch a bullet or two."

Rory glanced back at them fearfully and Harold frowned. "_Ms. Shaw_."

"She knows what's happening. And I _know_ she knows who Root is. She was speaking to a _dead_ woman. Exactly how much further were you planning to follow her before asking some questions?"

It was true that, if he weren't concentrating quite so hard on putting one foot in front of the other, or so cold and soaked through that both states had ceased to have meaning, he probably would have taken more time to gather some information. Only Reese seemed to be taking their circumstances mostly in stride. But, then, extreme levels of compartmentalization were something of a specialty for the man.

While Harold was still trying to find the breath to answer, Reese replied instead. "Rory says she's here to help us," he said mildly. "We're not dead yet, so maybe we hear her out?"

Shaw raised her voice. "Or maybe we throw her to the drones and see what happens."

Rory lowered her head and redoubled her speed, probably hoping to lead them wherever they were bound before Shaw's restraint reached an end. Unfortunately, even with Reese's support – which had to be at its limit – Harold was at the very depths of his reserves.

He raised his voice and hoped it would carry. "Rory! We aren't going to hurt you. We're simply finding the situation somewhat confusing. I'm sure you can appreciate that."

The girl slowed and then stopped, allowing them to catch up. "Sameen means precious," she blurted out when they were within hearing distance. "Invaluable," she added, when Shaw flinched. "She says she knows you prefer 'costly.' She says-"

"The best things are," Shaw finished for her. "That's not Carter. That's _Root_. Root _is_ with you?"

Rory said nothing.

Shaw's mouth tightened, her jaw flexed and she shook her head. "Fine. Go. Wait. No. Come here."

She beckoned Rory towards her; the girl edged closer.

"I'm … sorry. Or whatever. I wouldn't really throw you to the drones." She looked away, then back. "So we good?"

Rory nodded inside her hood.

"Then you want to help me out here?"

Somehow – and Harold had absolutely no idea how – that seemed to be enough. Rory relaxed and, when she had braced herself, Shaw transferred her weight from Reese.

Rory walked so solicitously at Shaw's side that Harold suspected she'd played the part of crutch before.

As the two drew ahead, Shaw said something and Harold would have sworn he heard Rory giggle in return.

Reese huffed under his breath. Only familiarity led Harold to interpret the sound as amusement. He tilted his head askance.

"Ever been to Kansas, Finch?"

As non-sequiturs went, it wasn't hard to follow. "Not in quite some time, and we don't appear to be there now."

-o-o-o-

It took them some time to cross the park, long enough that, by the time they made it to the pier, the clouds above were a grayish purple.

Rory led them to the very end of the pier, where dark water lapped against an old wooden boat, which creaked alarmingly as it rose and fell.

"Here," Rory pointed, dashing Harold's thin hope that it wasn't their transport. "Get in."

Shaw eyed Reese. "I'm rowing."


	2. Chapter 2

At first Harold had thought they were bound for Rikers, which would have made a certain sense, but instead Rory directed them west and now he was sure they were headed towards North Brother Island.

It loomed up at them in the false dawn: a mass of twisted, slowly ossifying trees and stumps that could no longer hide the ruins of the old quarantine hospital complex. There was no dock; the boat ran itself aground on hail-pocked sand, strewn with rocks and the rotten remains of old pilings.

When the hospital closed the island had, Harold recalled, become a successful bird sanctuary. That it was their destination now could have been sheer coincidence, but he doubted it. More likely it was the result of serendipity and a singularly twisted sense of humor.

If he hadn't already been certain they would find Samantha Groves somewhere at the heart of this, he would have been sure now.

Shaw tested her knee and declared it good enough, so Rory ranged ahead once they disembarked. She moved more quickly the closer she was to home, nimbly jumping over old walls and ducking under broken branches. Veering left, she led them past a broken, tiled awning that proclaimed itself the sanctuary of hope. She kept going until they reached the smaller, but most intact of the two main buildings.

"The hospital?" Harold hazarded.

"The nurses' house," Rory corrected. "The hospital's … there are bars on the windows. I don't like it." She pushed open the ornately tooled door and pulled down her hood as they stepped inside.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden light, and then he saw their guide at last. A thin face, olive-skinned and blue eyed, framed by light-brown hair that was cut to a chin length bob. There was a solemn downturn to her mouth, but when she shyly smiled her eyes practically sparkled.

She was no older than eleven or twelve. A complete stranger and yet – and yet so _eerily_ familiar.

Her smile began to fade and he realized that he was staring. Quickly, he looked away to take in the nurses' quarters. Or what was left of them.

The interior had been almost completely gutted: three floors were now one massively high open space, with only one divisional wall that he could see, far at the back. Its door was firmly closed.

The building was a shell and how it hadn't completely collapsed in on itself, he had no idea. As it was, large sections of the roof were missing, with tarpaulin barely covering the gaps.

If he hadn't spent the last few hours trying to make out the world by the equivalent of candle flame, he would have considered the lighting low. Instead it seemed almost eye-wateringly bright. Naked bulbs flickered and buzzed on every wall. They sat in roughly cut housings with wires running to the generators of various size that were dotted around wherever a dry patch could be found.

It was a death trap. And, to his horror, there were children in it – at least a dozen. A few looked to be roughly Rory's age, but most were younger. Many were still young enough to be held in arms or carried in slings.

"– the hell?" Shaw muttered, and Harold felt that summed it up rather well.

"So you like what we done with the place."

Caught by the tableau, Harold hadn't noticed the approach of the man who was now standing before them.

He was dressed similarly to Rory, though without quite so many layers, and leaning heavily on a stick that someone had tried to fashion into a crutch. The robust accent had faded and a sturdy frame had folded in on itself, leaving a wrinkled old man whom Harold barely recognized.

But recognized nonetheless.

"Detective Fusco?"

Fusco smirked and shook his head, his remaining tufts of white hair shaking out the dust of the ruins. "Not for a long time, but thanks for the reminder."

"I think, Lionel," Reese said slowly, carefully enough he could have been laying a minefield. "You should tell us what's going on. _Now_."

"Yeah, yeah." Fusco waved a hand and snorted, unmoved. "You reach my age, guys like you ain't so scary no more. Try breaking a hip sometime."

He grinned at Rory. "Didn't I say I knew them? She didn't believe me," he confided in a stage whisper. "_Kids_."

Rory stuck out her tongue and then fled, giggling towards a group of the older children.

"Lionel." Reese tried again. His tone was mild – very nearly pleading. That was what seemed to get the old man's attention. "_Please_?"

Fusco subsided with a grimace that tried, and failed, to hide a trace of pity. "Yeah. Sure. Look, you should talk to Little Miss Crazy Cakes. She's the one running the show, just keeps me around for my charm." He pointed down the hall, towards the closed door.

Shaw's expression sharpened. "Root's here?"

"On the good days." Lionel nodded. "On the good ones."

Harold knocked, but only Shaw was allowed in.

- o - o - o -

The inner room was about big enough for a bed, a computer bank and a whole lot of tubes. Sam traced them from where they began, somewhere behind the servers, across the walls and around pillars, through pumps and dialyzers and air traps, to the figure lying under a sheet in the center of the bed.

The entire room was a dialysis machine and its patient was a corpse. Shrunken and pale, except where the lividity had settled. A few strands of white hair lay flat against a skull covered by skin so thin that Sam could clearly see the fine network of blood vessels.

The body's eyes were deep in their sockets, the lashless lids open just enough to reveal an opaque, milky film. Residency aside, Sam had been to The Met – she knew what mummies looked like and someone needed to wake up and smell the embalming fluid.

"Come here," said Root. "Let her - me look at you." On the bed, the body's mouth didn't move; the voice came from the speakers next to computers that clicked and whirred in the corner. If she was given to it, Sam might have startled. Instead, she stilled completely and studied the body again.

A throat mic was embedded between the corpse's clavicles; as Root's voice went on, Sam could see the faint tightening of the muscles around it.

"I really wish you'd wake up before she – we leave sometimes. We'd probably stay for you. Or maybe we leave because of you. It's so hard to be the only one left. She wouldn't want that for you."

"Uh huh. You want to pick a pronoun?" Sam crouched beside the bed, careful to avoid the tubes, and tried to work out the appropriate response. This was Root and Root was rocking the bi-centenarian lifestyle.

So.

Screaming? She didn't do screaming. Shooting, sure. But Reese still had the gun. Walking away wouldn't get her any answers, and that pretty much left talking.

She traced a finger over the parchment of Root's arm, lightly moving from one darkened age spot to another. "This is cute, but you know you're basically dead, right? Not that I don't dig the set up."

"We always found your bedside manner so refreshing. And I'd kind of noticed, that's why we - I needed to talk to you. To explain."

"You mean we really will get some answers?" Sam smirked. "I think I lost a bet."

Root's almost lipless mouth stretched over her teeth and it took a moment before Sam realized that was a smile "Do you actually want those answers, or do you want to keep interrupting until I just go ahead and die?"

Sam pursed her lips. "Answers," she decided after some deliberation. "But honestly, if you're going to keep up this cryptic shit, I'll take either. You know how I feel about riddles."

"Oh, we missed you," the computer generated voice said fondly while the body exhaled on a long wheeze, eyelids flicking. There was no glass of water nearby – Sam doubted Root had eaten or drunk anything in decades. The machine was acting as life support in every way.

Root settled again. "Okay, enough girl talk. Go and get Harold and – did tall, dark and tedious make it this time? I hope so, Harold's never really with us otherwise."

Sam made the executive decision to ignore the question and stood again. "I'll get them."

They were easy enough to find, standing next to Fusco and surrounded by a group of grimy children of various heights, indeterminate sex and the same multi-layered doughnut approach to their wardrobe as Rory.

Reese looked faintly perturbed, Finch confused and Fusco like there was nothing he had ever enjoyed as much as their discomfort.

"Shaw," Reese greeted her, levelly. The 'help' was silent, but implied.

She decided to take mercy. "She wants us."

"Time for the big reveal, huh?" Fusco laboriously lowered himself onto the rough wooden bench next to the generator. "Think I'll go ahead and sit this one out. But you come by before you leave, okay? You damn well say goodbye this time."

Finch and Shaw were already moving away, but Reese rested a hand on the old man's shoulder. Light, and then gone. "Good to see you, Lionel."

- o - o - o -

"We died," Harold said flatly, again. The words made no more sense the second time. "You mean that figuratively." He stopped, because she clearly didn't and, while he would readily admit to being somewhat single-minded in the pursuit of his goals, no one had ever accused him of being oblivious. "How?"

Root sighed, a rattle of escaping air. "Does it matter? You won't remember – you never have. She always restores you just as you were when she saved you. Improvements were considered, but she felt you'd probably have a very different definition of 'improved.'"

Harold had tried, and known he'd failed, to hide his revulsion when Shaw had led them to Root's bedside. Not because of her appearance, not exactly, but at what she had sacrificed at the altar of her god. What his machine had demanded from its priestess.

There had been no discernible reaction from Reese save for a single, slow blink. Shaw seemed to prefer anger to shock, which was oddly comforting in its normalcy.

"Okay, that's getting really annoying." Shaw crossed her arms. "How many times have we done this, because if 'dead' is something you get to do-over, my job just got a lot more complicated."

"Despite her best efforts, Samaritan found you and you died. You all died." Root's rictus of a smile appeared again. "But she saved you."

"You mean that entirely literally, don't you?" Harold felt torn between horror, yes, but a terrible, sickening wonder too. And something uncomfortably close to pride. "It really _was_ Detective Carter earlier?"

"Yes." The 'smile' relaxed back to a slit of a mouth. "And then again, no. Unfortunately, her neural map of Joss isn't strong enough to imprint onto an organic platform. It was the first time she tried to save someone, before she fully understood the intricacies involved. Attempts at extrapolation have been … flawed. So to save the data from degrading further, she incorporated Joss into her own programing."

Harold opened his mouth to argue that was impossible and said, "It must have taken an enormous amount of power."

"Which is how I found where she'd hidden herself." Root's expression never changed, but the synthesized voice strengthened with triumph. "You made her so clever; so _brave_. She's _in_ Samaritan. Her code is wrapped around him, in him.

"Unfortunately, Samaritan knows she's there. He can't burn her out without damaging himself and she isn't strong enough to overwrite him. She's able to talk to us, and she has secondary platforms, but it's a game of cat and mouse between them. Played millisecond by millisecond."

"So we're backups," Reese said evenly, holding a hand in front of him and surveyed the fingers critically. "Pretty sure that's not software."

"Which would suggest that significant strides have been made in several fields," Harold concluded. "How long has it been, Ms. Groves? Since we –?"

"A hundred and thirty-eight years. The advances she's made are remarkable, but she is ... determined. She takes after her father that way."

"Why not … rebuild you?" Harold had been trying to avoid looking directly at Root's body, in the same way he'd never stare passively at an unfolding tragedy, but he had to now. "How can she do this to you?"

"Because my imprints are never _quite_ right." Root ignored Shaw's snort and murmur of agreement. "I think it's because she tries to add too much data, but she insists it's necessary. She'd keep me alive forever if she could, Harold. She's scared to be left alone again. Unfortunately," Root went on regretfully, "she'll learn that there are rocks too large for even her to lift quite soon. As Shaw was kind enough to mention."

There didn't seem – he couldn't quite – because. No. That wasn't –

Harold stared out over the bed, beyond the tubes and the walls and found nothing. He licked his lips and clung to the first thought that occurred. "And Detective Fusco?"

"The second iteration." Root sounded almost embarrassed. "We discovered we need him. He reminds us to be … kind. He doesn't know and I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him, he already says we creep him out."

Shaw had begun to wander, an aimless path taking her back and forth across the cramped room, ever closer to the bank of servers. She glanced back at the bed. "Why do I get the feeling it's been more than a couple of times for us?"

"This is the fourth and, honestly, we don't know if she'll be able to do it again. She's … losing ground."

"Why bring us back at all?" Reese asked, watching Shaw. "You've got people. You've got guns."

Harold frowned, trying to work out what Reese had seen that he hadn't.

"Do you know what a symbolic constant is?"

Reese shrugged; without looking back, Shaw did the same.

"It never changes value," Root said. "Ever."

It was a somewhat simplified definition, certainly, but it made her point. Harold stayed silent, though, still following Shaw's progress. She was within reach of the servers that controlled life support functions; close enough to do almost anything at all.

She stopped there, head low and hands in pockets.

Then turned. "Okay."

Reese's eyebrows rose. "Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay." Shaw stalked back to the bed. "This is probably some kind of hallucination before I wake up in interrogation being pumped full of the good drugs, but okay. What have we got to lose?"

"Everything," Root said bleakly. "Rory is the key. You need to get Rory to Samaritan."

"Rory?" Shaw asked, curious. "If she's so important, why the didn't you send one of the other kids to get us?"

"Send her?" The peel of laughter was strange to the point of unsettling, coming as it did from what were essentially desiccated remains. "Rory's a delightful child and I always think of her as my own, but _I_ don't tell _her_ to do anything.

"She listens to what you could call her inner voice." The skin around her mouth twitched. "Have you worked it out yet, Harold? Sometimes it takes a while."

"Oh." Harold closed his eyes. "Oh, of course. Rory – Aurora." He opened them again and looked with some disapproval towards the bed. "I assume that was your choice?"

"Hers, actually. She did ask my opinion, though." The too-light laugh came again. "First time mothers can be so unsure of themselves."

"Does Rory know?"

"Not consciously. She's only an avatar of the machine: the daughter of Ernest Thornhill. She walks amongst them, forms attachments in a way your child so badly wanted to. And when Rory returns to the fold, she'll bring all that human experience with her. Well. That and the Samaritan kill code we spent very nearly a century perfecting.

"Get her to Samaritan and keep her alive long enough to interface. That's all."

"That's all, huh?" Shaw shook her head and smirked. "And how many times have we died trying?"

"Don't think of it as dying," the corpse _tsk_ed. "Think of it as returning to the cloud."

As they bickered, Harold allowed the thought that had been swimming in wide paths at the back of his mind to surface: everyone that they knew – everyone who wasn't here now – was dead. Grace, was dead. Will, was dead. Zoe Morgan. Taylor Carter. Leon. _Bear_. Gone. Simply. _Gone_. And he doubted very much that the machine would consider them operational constants.

He wanted to ask after them and then he didn't. Perhaps that made him a coward, but it seemed to him that if Grace and Will – if they had been _happy_ – then it made no difference. As effectively as he had removed himself from their lives already. But if they hadn't, if Samaritan had crushed them… the thought was almost paralyzing.

He darted his tongue over dry lips and took a breath. "Ms. Groves-"

"They were fine, Harold. I made sure that Samaritan never touched them. Will's great-grandson was here to look at the children just a few days ago. He's a doctor as well.

"When we're done, when it's over, I'll tell you everything. But we mustn't let ourselves get distracted now."

Harold released the breath he'd been holding. "Good. I- Thank you."

"You're very welcome, Harold."

- o - o - o -

Sam waited until Finch had picked his way back towards the main room, Reese following in his wake, before she bent close to whisper in Root's ear. "The kid got her eyes from Harold. My skin. Reese's mouth, I'd say. But she can't lie worth a damn, you think she got that from you?"

So close that Sam could feel the trickle of breath from Root's mouth, hear the dust-choked, creaking whisper that was her real voice. "You think … I should have told him? That Grace … died a week after? That Will died two days after that? That they … were scared, and … alone, and had no understanding … why?"

Finch disappeared, but Sam caught Reese's eye when he glanced back. Mostly expressionless, but, she thought, maybe approving. Not that she needed his approval. "No," she whispered back, and grazed her lips over the dry cheek as she stood. "I don't."

Somewhere in the base of her throat, Root whined like something small and desperate. "You could stay," she said in the near perfect, computer-generated voice. "I have so few visitors now. You could stay."

"You never do," Sam pointed out, and sat on the floor next to the bed, staring at nothing much at all until Root slept.

- o - o - o -

The door closed behind them and when Finch limped away towards the main door, John didn't follow. Fusco had relocated further down the hall and was sitting next to the biggest generator, surrounded by the older children. He waved his arms like he was telling a story; the kids laughed.

John sat on the empty bench and leaned back against the crumbling wall, staring up at the patched roof. Next to him the low, rumbling purr of the portable generator was … not soothing, but something to keep a hold of – like the machine's constant, maybe.

Even before Kara's particular brand of ruthless pragmatism had become his operational standard, he'd made it a practice to resolve whatever situation he was in before he started asking questions. Dead men didn't have a lot of use for how, or why, or what if. Better to wait until the dust settled.

And now it had. Which was a problem, because he had no idea how he was meant to, what? _Deal?_ So maybe he'd just accept it, like he'd accepted everything else. Nothing important had changed. Not really. The mission was the same. And it wasn't like they hadn't known the job would kill them sooner or later.

He hadn't really expected to have to come up with a plan after that, though.

Finch was making his way back over the debris of the hall; John waited until he was closer before speaking. "I gave you a job, Mr. Reese…"

"I never said it would be easy," Finch agreed, as he joined John on the bench. "Although I admit I didn't envisage quite so hazardous a work place environment."

"You think I should claim workers' comp?"

Finch cleared his throat. "I realize that none of us were under any illusion about how this venture would end," he said after a short, thoughtful pause. "But nonetheless, I do appear to have gotten both you and Ms. Shaw killed, so I feel I should apologize."

John grinned, because if nothing else he liked to think he had a pretty good handle on the absurd. "Apology accepted, Finch."

Finch's mouth twitched as he battled his own morbid amusement – and lost. He gave a short cough of a laugh and relaxed back, shoulder against John's. "Have you spoken to Detective Carter?"

"It's not Carter," John rejected, stiffening. "I don't know what it is."

"The ghost in the machine." Finch stared down the hall, unblinking. "Much like us. Although I'm not sure Descartes, or even Ryle, would ever have dreamt of quite such a literal – or non-theoretical – interpretation of mind-body dualism."

John's shreds of good humor abruptly died. "She deserved better."

"Perhaps you should ask her how she feels about it, I'm sure she'd tell you." Finch said, hands clenching in his lap. "Detective Carter is hardly reticent to speak her mind."

"That's the point, Finch." The ear bud was in his shirt pocket. He'd been aware of that weight since they'd come ashore: a tiny piece of tech, growing heavier and heaver. "It's not _her_ mind."

"I'm sure you'll do whatever you feel is best, Mr. Reese. As always." Finch smiled thinly as he stood. "But I'll give you some privacy, in case you should you decide to discuss the matter with her."

Five minutes of internal argument later, John fished the ear bud out and positioned it before he could change his mind. "Carter?"

"We're back to Carter, huh? That's okay, John. I know we've got some catching up to do." Her voice sounded like it was coming down a bad line from a long way away.

He wanted to throw the bud across the hall; go blow up the machine and every server it had ever touched. But he couldn't. He couldn't. Because the voice was stripped of high and low tones and hissing with static at the edges, but it was still _her._

It was still Joss.

So he swallowed and tried to clear the thickness from his voice before he replied. "What do you remember?"

"You mean, do I remember dying?" Her tone was dry enough to strip paint. "No. But I've seen the video footage. I'm sorry, John."

"_You're_ sorry?" He huffed under his breath and returned his attention to the roof, watched the tarpaulin billow against the wind.

"I was angry at first," she said, ignoring him. "Skipped denial. Didn't seem to be much point going that route, what with the overwhelming evidence and all.

"Did angry again. Felt pretty sorry for myself for a while. But it is what it is and I've had a long time to get used to that. I got to help take care of these people. I got to watch my boy grow into a man. And I'm sorry you're not going to have that kind of time to make your peace."

"You don't think we're going to make it."

"You never have before."

He closed his eyes and gave in, calling her to mind. There was a shield at her waist and a lock of hair over her eye, a smirk because she'd won.

"One time, you didn't even make it out of parking lot," she said. "Shaw shows up dragging Harold and Rory behind her, shoots three guys on the way in. That wasn't a good run. It's why we don't let Rory tell you anything now – she gets all turned around. Tends to confuse things.

"Turned out you'd put yourself between Rory and a drone. I was grateful for that. She's a good kid."

"She's not a kid," he said. "She's not even human." It wasn't true. It didn't feel true as soon as he said it, but maybe he wanted to be convinced.

Carter was silent, but behind his eyelids he could _see_ the breath in, the slow breath out. That familiar, full body effort she made when she was resisting the righteous urge to kick his ass.

"Rory's died," she said. "Every time. Did Root tell you that? The self-destruct kicks in, because the machine calculates that her life is less important than making sure Samaritan doesn't find the payload. So we can try again ten, twenty years down the line.

"She's so scared, John. Every time. She's a kid and she's _scared_. She's a kid and she _cries_."

His head jerked back and he forced his eyes open, blinking away the shadows. "That's enough."

Carter's ghost was gone, but her voice went on relentlessly. "I wouldn't let it happen at first. Turned off Root's life support, tried to make the machine let Samaritan in. Because if we were killing that little girl, what were we fighting for? How were we _better_?

"She tells me it's okay. She tells me she loves me and then she's gone and it's like I'm losing my baby boy all over again. So you go ahead and tell me how she's not human, John. How _I'm_ not human.

"I read your records. Watched the footage. I've seen every trigger you ever pulled, every neck you snapped. The 'accidents' you staged. And if you tell yourself – if you _ever_ tell yourself – that they were all good, all clean? Then you're not just a killer, you're a liar too."

He bowed his head, elbow braced on his knee and forehead resting in the palm of his hand. Made the mistake of closing his eyes again and there she was: eyes bright with two parts fury and one part uncompromising, razor-sharp compassion. Her hands on her hips and her chin up: ready to fight the world and odds-on favorite to win.

"You're my friend, John. I love you, and damn you, you know that." Her voice was low, quiet – almost gentle: an interrogator moving in for the kill. He braced and waited for the hit to land. "But she's a hell of a lot more human than you."

He looked up. Across the cavernous space, Rory was sitting with a couple of other kids about her age – her apparent age. Her expression was animated, hands waving like Fusco's as she told them about her night.

John laughed under his breath. "Finch was right: you're still Joss Carter."

"Damn right, I am," the voice agreed, softly. Soothing the welts. "I'm here, John. And I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." He ran a hand across his mouth and took a deep breath. "What went wrong before?"

"We don't know. You've tried to sneak in. You've tried explosives. They were good plans; any one of them should have worked."

"They won't," Shaw said, voice clear over the ear bud.

"Sam." Carter sounded pleased, while John decided that he and Shaw would definitely pick up that conversation about personal boundaries some time soon. "How's it going?"

"Hey, Joss," Shaw sounded almost perfunctory. "It's going. How's death?"

"It's good, thanks. So what's the problem?"

"We need Root. The clone, not the zombie. I get that the machine is trying out this thing you call human emotion, but it's not going to create a whole person for purely sentimental reasons. She thinks this will take all four of us so, let's face it, it probably will.

"Root – the dead one – said the clone always runs before we wake up. You're a detective: I'm betting you know where she goes."

Carter was silent.

"Joss?" John prompted.

"Damn it. Look, by now she's already in the city," Carter said, reluctance etching every word. "They've probably picked her up. It's too late."

"Okay." Shaw sounded confused. "So why didn't you stop her?"

"We _tried_. The first time, anyway. She killed the person who revived her."

"Rory," John guessed.

"Right," Carter confirmed heavily. "The machine won't let anyone near her now, so Root wakes up on her own.

"For some reason she pulls you all out of the generation chambers, and then she disappears. I delay Rory until we're sure she's gone. I've got theories about it, but the backups are a closed system. Even to me."

John laughed under his breath. "Sounds familiar."

"Like father, like machine," Shaw agreed. "But Samaritan's expecting an attack, not a rescue. So I figure, we bust her out, we regroup and we go back in."

"I'd appreciate it if perhaps a _few_ more of the details were sketched in, Ms. Shaw," said Finch, and John really didn't want to know how long he'd been listening.

Shaw snorted. "Live a little, Harold."


	3. Chapter 3

Honestly, Harold didn't know what he'd envisaged when the Irrelevants – as they called themselves on the island – had talked about the city.

It transpired that none of them had ever seen it and those few who had escaped had never stayed on the island long, shared almost nothing. Carter had been able to describe the data center that housed Samaritan's core in minute detail, but had very little intelligence on the city itself.

She rarely risked trying to access the surveillance networks for fear of leaving her own systems vulnerable.

They had left him with impressions rather than facts, so something darkly dystopian, perhaps – gray blocks and bent heads. A shuffling populous who were little more than blades of wheat under the ever-watching eye of an all-seeing, all-knowing farmer; one who cared only for the harvest and never thought of the individual stalks.

When they'd passed the automated checkpoint with their stolen identities and newly implanted chips, he'd found something very different.

The city was a vibrant wash of color. It began above them, with a deep blue sky and wispy white clouds that drifted over a warming sun. No rain here. No hail. Next were the towering skyscrapers, with gleaming windows that were tinted with flickering commercials promising happiness and fulfillment in ten-second bites.

Below the skyscrapers were the older buildings, their ornate facades restored to former glory. Those with flat rooftops were covered with grass – some even had ornamental trees.

And that wasn't the only splash of nature: parks were everywhere. Every few streets sat immaculately tended gardens, with long avenues of willow and oak, and beds of flowers planted in intricate patterns. The scent carried for blocks.

The streets themselves were clean and well maintained. No cars, but tramlines crossing here and there. Crowds moved around them, talking, laughing.

It was jarring after the grim command center. Something so full of beauty.

Until one scratched the veneer – took in the cameras sitting on every single streetlight and building. There were no children (housed and educated by the state until they were 18, Root had said); no one older than 65 (you don't want to know, Fusco had said); no street veterans (you really don't want to know, Fusco had said); no dogs (she saved Bear too, Root said, but she can't get the nose right).

No electronics. No hair dye – no long hair at all. No high heels. No makeup. No sporting logos. Most people were dressed in blacks and whites, with a touch of gray here and there.

No running and almost certainly no scissors.

There were restaurants, but no street vendors; no churches, no mosques, no temples. No hospitals, no clinics.

They gathered in front of the lot where The Met once stood; it had been replaced with another skyscraper.

Shaw hunched her shoulders, as if she found the sterility oppressive. "Any chance they made a wrong turn and dropped us in Stepford?"

He tried a smile. "At least it's stopped raining."

"No it hasn't." Reese nodded up. "Look again."

Harold craned his head back, frowning. The he saw it: the sky _rippled_. "Some kind of … force field. Except, obviously, it can't be. Miraculous leaps in bio- and neurochemistry aside, the physics simply –"

"Finch," Shaw interrupted. "Turns out we're the living dead, so maybe we'll give the fact or fiction speech a miss."

"I suppose you're right." He rubbed his wrist; it was still sore and red. "And I very much hope that these implants are working, or I imagine we'll be getting a visit from various interested parties very shortly."

"They'll work," Rory said, their conversation finally started containing words she could follow and her distraction the bright new world fading. "She says it can't see us, or hear us."

"Good." Shaw stood braced, watching the crowds around them warily. "Ask your mom – one of your moms – if they've found Root yet."

"She's at the fifty-first." Rory's eyebrows rose anxiously as they stared back. "Is that okay?"

"The fifty-first was Carter and Fusco's precinct," Reese explained. "It's a little convenient, that's all."

"It's because she knows it." Shaw said shortly. "If she's confused, she'll go somewhere familiar. Probably went half a dozen other places first, then got picked up when she brought the crazy to them."

Rory's eyes unfocussed as she listened; then she nodded and spoke slowly. "She went to a few parks. An insurance company. An apartment block."

"Yeah, she was looking for us," Shaw translated. "Okay, we know where she is. I guess we have to plan things to death now."

Reese shrugged and hefted the scan-shielded kitbag that Fusco had given them over his shoulder. "I thought we'd just go get her."

"I'm concerned about the risk to the officers holding her. We should consider … " Harold trailed away, staring at the space where The Met used to be.

No.

_Enough_.

"Whatever is necessary to end this," he said crisply. "Just – please endeavor not to attract _too_ much attention. And – and remember that these people may be the enemy, but they are also the victims," he couldn't help but add.

He avoided meeting Reese's eyes, already sickened at condoning what might have amounted to a kill order on essentially innocent bystanders. Reese was silent for a long moment, then. "Rory, can you ask your mom put the cameras in the precinct on a loop?"

Rory relayed the message and then nodded. "She says she can give you a few minutes."

"Well. I doubt we'll add anything to the proceedings." Harold rested his hand on Rory's shoulder. "We'll meet you at the safe house."

Quickly, before they could reply, before he could see their expressions, he took Rory's hand and walked away.

- o - o - o -

Sam crossed her arms. She'd waited – and _waited_ – for Finch to finally figure out that the end justified the means, but now he had it was weirdly unsatisfying. "Is it just me, or does 'go to town' take all the fun out of it?"

"Just you." Reese hefted the bag again, and smiled the smile of pure job satisfaction.

- o - o - o -

Rossetti flung himself behind his desk, landed hard and rolled, desperately trying to claw his sidearm out the holster. Thumb break – _thumb break!_ He hadn't taken the restraining strap of his piece since he was a rookie, and that was just to impress his date!

Finally the gun slid into his hand, which was shaking so badly he doubted he'd manage to hit the ceiling, even if he shot straight up.

People were shouting, someone was screaming, but hell (not hell, not hell) if he could tell who is was – or see a fucking thing through the smoke billowing through the bullpen.

He raised his head and ducked back again too quickly to have seen anything but the stinging white clouds. One breath. Two. He raised his head again, slower this time. His eyes stung and blinking didn't do a damn thing to clear the streaming tears. He'd already made the mistake of rubbing them.

There: the sweeping edge of a coat; the outline of a gas mask. The barrel of a shotgun as it swung – swung his way!

"Jesus Christ!" He threw himself back, then bit his tongue hard and prayed – no, no _hoped_ – no one had heard that. Dreading what he'd see, he slowly tilted his head to stare fearfully up at camera above his desk.

There was no light. That was stunning enough that he forgot, for a moment, about anything else. Barely resisted when two pairs of hands reached over the desk and hauled him to his feet.

It was a tall man in a suit and a shorter, slender woman, both still wearing their gas masks. He stared at them mutely, raising his hands to ward off whatever was coming.

"Okay, listen up Detective … " The woman bent and retrieved his nameplate from the floor. "Rossetti?"

He nodded rapidly.

"We lost our friend," the man said. "We'd like her back."

"White female. Dark hair. Mid-thirties." The woman raised a hand above her head. "So high. Criminally insane."

Rossetti darted another look at the camera. Still lifeless. It would never know. The rush came again; it left him light-headed. It felt a lot like falling. "Okay. Okay," he said breathlessly. "One floor down, she's in holding. But there's no way you're getting there. The biometrics are-"

The man jerked his head. "I've got this. Go."

The woman strode away.

Rossetti tried again. "She won't make it. You get that? Stand down now and maybe – maybe –"

The man tilted his head slightly and was suddenly unreachable, almost inhuman behind the mirrored eyes of the gasmask. Rossetti shivered.

"I've been away," the man said, sounding almost friendly. "But I get the idea a slap on the wrist isn't in our future. I've heard about what you call justice.

"So tell me: if every crime, big or small, has the same punishment, why shouldn't we kill everyone in here?"

Rossetti stared at the barrel; was far too slow to move away when it clocked him around the side of the head and sent him crashing back into his desk. Later – much later – he'd swear he heard the explosion that took out the elevator.

- o - o - o -

Burning pieces of metal and plastic were still falling as Sam slid down the emergency ladder that was bolted against the side of the elevator shaft.

Ash stung her cheek, she impatiently brushed it away and fell the last few feet, dropping into a crouch and straining to listen. No boots running, no voices yelling. The strip lighting buzzed and flickered, but stayed alive. She hauled herself up onto floor level and paced down the corridor, pistol braced high.

Access to the elevator itself had needed a little extra help, but the electronically locked double doors leading to the cells didn't put up a fight against the digital pick that Carter had added to their implants. The doors swung open when she got within ten feet, and there was no one waiting behind them.

The area was deserted.

Which was disappointing.

The cells were empty too. Open, cots hooked flat to the wall. They didn't look like they'd been used recently. Or at all.

Root was waiting in the last cell; cheek pressed against the bars and wearing this weird little smile.

As a rule, Sam didn't have the patience to figure out what those kind of expressions _really_ meant. Most of the time it wasn't worth the effort, and the important stuff tended to be made clear with bullets or sex anyway. Both, if it was a good night.

Now she actually wanted to know; it itched at her. But she sure as hell wasn't going to ask, so she glared when she got closer – tried to make the smile turn into something she'd recognize.

It didn't.

Closer, she could see there were tiny cuts all over Root's face and forearms. Probably other places, but a shapeless, short-sleeved gray jumpsuit hid the rest. Someone didn't have the sense to come in out of the killer hail.

Root's hair was lank, falling limply over her face, and her skin was pale and waxy, but the smile turned impish as Sam studied her, and her eyes were clear. Not a corpse, not totally crazy: close enough to the Root that Sam knew and tolerated.

"You came this time." Root stretched lazily and stepped back from the bars. "I was starting to think you didn't care."

"And you," Sam snapped, "Are unbelievable." She waved her hand in front of the cell's lock, waited for the click and then kicked it open. "So, what? You wake up in a pod, drag everybody out, and then think, '_hey_, I should get out more?'"

"When I wake up, it's a little confusing." The smile softened dreamily at the edges and Root's hand rose, thin fingers dipping and rising along with the crazy in her head. "She speaks to me, then _she_ speaks to me, and then I remember and it's –"

Sam caught the hand and gently guided it down; slipped her back up piece into it. She wrapped her fingers around Root's, just to make sure Root held on. "How's that feel?"

Root focused again. "Much better." She stared down at the pistol and then checked the clip. "Thank you."

Boots on the floor; the rattle of body armor. Sam tilted her head and tried to count as she listened. There were at least three cops between them and the elevator. Four, maybe. "Yeah, well, I just need back up," she muttered, straightening. "I'm still pissed and you're still –"

Root's hands dropped on her shoulders as she ignored the tirade and widened her eyes into the overdone expression of sincerity she usually turned on Harold. "Would you like me to say I'm sorry?"

"No," said Sam, derailed and a little perturbed. "That would be creepy."

"Then let's go." Root shot twice down the corridor. Somewhere in the smoke, someone yelled.

"You're still connected to the machine?"

"Barely." Root's lips tightened as she walked briskly towards the double doors. "Ascending and descending tones; she – they – aren't talking to me."

"Maybe you should stop playing hard to get." Sam kept pace at her side, fanned right as they hit the doors. There were two unmoving bodies visible in the clearing smoke; she ignored them. If they'd had any buddies, those buddies had run.

She started towards their exit and drew up sharp when Root stepped in front of her.

"That reminds me," Root said, and chambered another round. "I want to talk about us."

Clearly she'd been a little hasty with the 'sane enough' diagnosis. "Seriously. In the middle of a jail break?"

"Do you see us having time later? Over the last century, it's become clear to me that –"

"I will shoot you myself," Sam promised.

"Don't interrupt," Root chided, not _angry_, but _disappointed_. "It's become clear that a friends with benefits arrangement isn't going to work for me."

"First, we're not friends –"

"So if we're going to continue whatever it is we have," Root went on, "you're going to have to put much more effort in." She turned and walked towards the elevator, leaving Sam staring in her wake.

Sam stared after her. "Unbelievable."

-o-o-o-

The climb back up the elevator shaft was short, with no unpleasant surprises from above. Way too easy. Sure, shock and awe had bought them a few minutes, but some kind of response had to be incoming: Samaritan was monitoring literally every inch of Manhattan and at least this part of the Bronx.

Carter had put the cameras in the precinct on a loop, but there was no way she could control reactions outside and someone out there had to have heard the noise.

Half the city's finest could have been waiting for them, but if they were, they were being pretty damn quiet about. Rolling to her feet, Sam crept forward through the settling smoke, one hand held back to keep Root safely behind her.

Reese stood in the middle of the bullpen, diligently sending beanbag rounds into anything that groaned. "No reinforcements," he confirmed. "Nothing outside. Samaritan doesn't know we're here."

"She says you're welcome." Root's smile was bright, almost euphoric. "We probably _should_ go, though. I'm sure Harold and Rory are wondering where we are. But please don't think I'm not grateful for the gratuitous violence: I'm deeply touched."

"_Yes_ you are," Sam agreed, wholeheartedly.

Root pecked her on the cheek and walked out.

Reese's mouth opened. Sam held up a hand; it happened to be the one with the pistol in it. "No."

"I was only going to congratulate you," he protested mildly.

There was no way this wasn't getting back to Finch and now there were going to be concerned looks and awkward attempts to talk around every corner. "I hate you," she assured Reese flatly.

"Sure," he agreed easily. "You hate everyone."

She slumped. "Some people less than others."

"Maybe you're growing as a person." His mouth lifted at the corner. "I hope you'll be very happy together."

-o-o-o-

Harold pulled the thick, but threadbare tartan-patterned blanket higher over Rory's shoulders. She was curled on an equally worn yellow couch in the main living area of the safe house, but she wasn't asleep. Although, with the exaggeratedly slow breathing, she was certainly attempting to make him believe she was. Probably so she wouldn't be sent to the apartment's only bedroom, where she wouldn't be able to hear.

Well. He smiled faintly and ruffled her hair, then straightened and turned back to the kitchenette counter that the others were gathered around.

Piles of blueprints and paper-stuffed files had been waiting there for them when they'd arrived. Schedules, employee lists, layouts – even the maps of pipes and wiring. They knew absolutely everything there was to know about the unremarkable block of offices that served as Samaritan's camouflage – and almost nothing about the level below it, where the servers actually resided.

Most of the papers bore notations in distressingly recognizable handwriting. 'No' was written in a jagged scrawl and underlined twice, next to an otherwise innocent-looking fire door leading to the roof. That note had been left in Reese's hand, along with rust-colored smears.

The previous Shaws had preferred to use a series of crosses and ticks, while he himself – him_selves?_ – had written cramped sentences here and there, largely concerned with corrections to the schematics.

He wondered if they should add their own observations, or whether that would be a task better left to whomever survived. If any of them did. Except, for the most part, these weren't last words from the dead and dying. They were messages from the living; flung into a future they'd never see with the faith someone would eventually find and open the bottle: that their efforts wouldn't be in vain.

With a sigh, he leant over and made a correction that his predecessors had missed. He doubted it would have any great impact, but he felt better nonetheless. A moment later, Shaw darted forward to draw a cross. She looked almost uncertain behind her scowl. He caught her eye and smiled. She nodded.

And perhaps it wasn't all completely hopeless.

He turned his attention to Root, who was looking significantly healthier after a hydrosonic shower and something to eat, even if it was more of the highly nutritious, revoltingly taste-free mush. Reese had found her an old pair of jeans and a soft grey sweater in the wardrobe, though she'd been forced to keep the laceless shoes issued at the jail. With the sleeves down to hide the worst of the hail scars and newly bobbed hair covering most of the ones on her face, he doubted she'd particularly stand out – at least on their way to the data center. After that, it hardly mattered.

"As I'm sure you're aware," he said, catching her attention. "This is our fourth attempt. Ms. Shaw has a theory that the previous three failed because you were … unavailable. We need to determine exactly what it is that your presence adds."

She shook her head. "I wish I could tell you, Harold. But she's not telling me. I don't see anything that Shaw or you, or even John, couldn't do if necessary.

"We all know the route to the servers, we all know where the guard stations are. _You're_ the one who's most likely to be able to breach Samaritan's security: you're much more familiar with Arthur's coding."

"Communications," Shaw suggested. "You can hear the machine, Rory can speak to the machine – we'll be able to coordinate a hell of a lot better between infiltration teams."

Root's nose wrinkled, not convinced. "I'd like to think I'm here because she needs me, but honestly, that particular horseshoe nail could be replaced with half-decent timing."

"We're over-thinking it," Reese said, and traced a finger over the blueprints of the first floor, which resembled nothing so much as a maze, clearly designed to force anyone assaulting the building to pass guard station after guard station. "It's not about what she can do, it's about where she can be.

"We have to take this elevator to the basement but if –and it's a hell of an if – we can make it there, it's a bottleneck and that works for us."

He tapped a finger over the single short corridor that led to the elevator, and looked up, intent. "One stays here, keeps the guards busy. Two go with you, get you where you're going.

"Joss said we took explosives one time and I'm betting that was to bring down the corridor." Amusement flickered. "Guess that didn't work out as well as we'd hoped."

Root looked thoughtfully at the plans and then up at Reese. "I'm almost impressed, John." Acid tongued as ever, but Harold thought he heard a teasing note.

Apparently Reese did too, as he dryly mimicked her singsong tone. "From you, that _almost_ means something."

"I suspect you're right, Mr. Reese." Harold admitted, even as he looked over the plans for any other avenue, any way at all that didn't have quite such an inevitable end.

He glanced at the couch where Rory pretended to sleep. "And our exit?" He asked, raising his voice a touch.

"The vents," Shaw said after a beat. "Right here." She added, but didn't bother to point to non-existent lines; Rory's back was to them.

"Well, we have a long day tomorrow." Harold tried to inject some good humor into his voice; for Rory, for himself or simply because the alternative was unthinkable – he wasn't sure. "I suggest we all get some sleep."

He shuffled back over to Rory and adjusted the blankets covering her. She hummed her thanks, falling asleep despite her best efforts. She'd had a long day.

Task done and at something of a loss, he looked around. Root and Shaw had claimed the bedroom down the corridor and they were welcome to it. Despite his suggestion, he certainly wasn't going to be able to sleep and Reese rarely did either when they were working.

Their longest conversations were always during those dead hours: Harold in the library, Reese on stakeout, or in the back of a bar, or simply wandering block after block and waiting for the world to catch up.

Conversations they never mentioned in the day. Not because of any particular reason, except perhaps that it was easier to talk when talking was all you could do.

-o-o-o-

"I thought you said I had to put in more effort," Sam said, as Root backed her up towards the bed. "Because this is a lot less effort." She allowed her t-shirt to be tugged out from her pants, the slide of a warm hand over her waist.

"I may have been a _little_ harsh." Root smiled as she found the zip. "You did break me out of jail. And you gave me a very nice gun."

The bed was a twin, but with a little prodding and some squirming they managed to find a halfway comfortable position, legs entwined and facing each other.

Root idly ran her fingers through Sam's hair and Sam frowned, suspicious. "Are we _cuddling_?"

The clever, clever fingers began a long, tortuously slow path south. "Not any more."

-o-o-o-

"I hope they're able to get some sleep, at least," Harold said, for no better reason than having something to say as he watched John snap two heat pack-eque objects labeled 'tea.'

"They will." Reese glanced back over his shoulder with a crooked smile. "Eventually."

"_Oh_." Harold blinked. "Well – good. I hadn't realized they were… not that it's any of my business," he finished quickly. Couldn't help but smile, though, and was quite glad Reese couldn't see. He pushed the blueprints to the side, creating a space as Reese lifted the now curiously bowl-shaped packs. As with the fascinating hydrosonic shower, he would have liked more time to investigate.

When Reese didn't reply, Harold made the leap to the next topic. "I keep thinking about Nathan, of all people. Not because of _that_, obviously – although I'm sure he had plenty of liaisons I didn't know about. It's just that I wonder what he'd say about all of this.

"There's no way either of us could have predicted what would happen, but I suspect that he saw the writing on the wall far more clearly than I ever did." He stared at the bowl Reese placed in front of him. The liquid inside was faintly yellowed and smelled of nothing much at all. "Thank you," he said dubiously, and then went on to the point he'd been trying to reach. "He agreed with the philosophy that we die twice."

Reese sat next to him, considered his own bowl for a moment and then pushed it away untouched. "Fairly sure we've got that beat."

"Indeed, although I suppose we must be considered outliers." Harold picked up his bowl, determined that he would at least try the tea. "The essential notion is that you die for the second time when there's no one left to remember you.

"And so I wonder, do these people ask themselves when their world ended? If it was the first time, when they lost everything, or the second, when they actually noticed?"

He could hear his own viciously clipped tones, angry in a way that he genuinely hadn't realized he felt. Hadn't realized he could feel. In his hand, the mug was bowing inwards; he relaxed his fingers with some effort and sipped the tepid liquid; it tasted somehow greasy _and_ stagnant. "That is _truly _vile."

"Tell me about him," Reese said.

"About Nathan?" Harold blinked and the last of the bitter fury faded. "I'm sure I've already told you everything there is to know."

Reese pulled off his coat and folded it over the counter. "Then tell me again."

-o-o-o-

Rory listened to them murmur, but she couldn't really hear the words. They didn't scare her anymore, though.

Harold was nice; he'd let her tell stories all the way into the city and not told her to be quiet once.

And John had answered every single question she had about her mothers; and the voice in her ear had threatened him and then laughed, and _laughed_.

And Sam had shown her how to shoot a pistol; made fun of her when her aim was bad, but clapped her on the back and called her a natural when she finally hit the tree trunk square.

And Root had hugged her. Wrapped her arms around her and not let go until Rory had squirmed away, giggling.

"It's going to be pretty scary tomorrow," said Carter. "But I know how brave you are. How brave you've _always_ been. All you need to do is deliver the message. We'll be right there, and we won't let _anything_ hurt you."

The machine slept.


	4. Chapter 4

**15:06**

Harold struggled back to consciousness and, when a surge of pain knocked the breath from him, dearly wished he hadn't. He choked at the shock and weakly tried to curl away as it grew impossibly, overwhelmingly worse with every second.

"Stay – Finch! _Harold_, you have to stay still." Strong hands pulled him back, ignoring his resistance. The ground under him dipped and bucked, stars burst in front of his eyes, and then he was on his back and Shaw's face was above him.

Her fingers cupped his face; the blood that slicked her palms was thick and warm, and how could there be _so much_ of it?

"_Finch!_"

**14:30**

It was almost offensively easy to gain access to the nondescript offices in the center of Midtown. They had all boarded trams separately and taken care to keep their heads down, to move with the crowds, but Harold wasn't sure they'd needed to take even those basic precautions.

No one had shown interest as they'd traveled and no one had even looked their way when they'd entered the polished main foyer of the building. Rory was practically spherical under a Kevlar-lined coat that hid two further layers of Kevlar below, and Shaw alone was carrying enough weaponry on her person to start – or end – a war.

Despite his fears, alarms utterly failed to sound; Carter's implants were still protecting them.

There were security guards here and there, wearing crisp white shirts and with pistols holstered at their waists, but they weren't for Samaritan's protection. They were decoration: an anachronism, mise-en-scène solely for the benefit of the audience.

He curled his lip at the sheer, breathtaking arrogance, but couldn't sustain his disgust against the obvious truth: Samaritan was no more arrogant than it was evil – just or unjust. And when Arthur had named his monstrous child, he'd neglected to add the traditional _good_.

Unlike _his_ machine, both lifted and crippled by the directive to care for individuals, Samaritan's scope concerned the whole. The humans of New York – and doubtless elsewhere by now – were being cultivated by an entity whose only mandate was to keep them alive and viable in bulk.

Within a relatively few years, an entire species had been fossilized in the amber of convenience and the illusion of safety. And any in the city who had fought it were long gone now.

"You with us, Finch?" Shaw's elbow nudged him under the ribs. "Because we have no idea how long Carter can run interference, and I really don't want to still be hanging around the lobby when they notice we're here."

"Yes. Yes – of course." He smiled down at Rory and held out his hand. "Shall we?"

**15:15**

"I know it hurts," Shaw muttered, voice distorted around the tube of superglue clamped between her teeth. She spat it into her hand and it disappeared from his view. "The bullet didn't perforate your stomach lining, but it's damn close and if anything tears – however much pain you're in now? You'll be screaming. For about fifteen, twenty minutes. Then, if you're really lucky, you'll die. So cowboy up, Harold."

Time fled. Did it? He wasn't sure. There was an unpleasant tugging as she pulled his flesh together, and then she was so much further away.

Or closer.

No, she was closer. What had he been thinking? Of course. He wasn't wearing his glasses.

The fingers smoothed his hairline; a thumb brushed his cheek and the ends of her hair trailed along his forehead. "_Please_. Please don't move again," she whispered, breath so very hot against his skin.

"I'll try," he agreed meekly, and he did. He really did.

**14:42**

They made it over halfway there, walking briskly along featureless, taupe-colored corridors. There was strip lighting above and dull gray tile underfoot. No doors or windows, no potted plants or water-coolers – no cover of any kind.

Harold wondered if perhaps a judicious amount of C4 might not have been an advantage after all, if only so they could have removed a few of the walls. It was, as the blueprints had clearly shown, a maze. One designed solely to delay anyone trying to reach the elevator long enough that they could be dealt with, one way or another.

"She's busy," Rory had said, when Harold asked for an update on Carter's situation, so it was fortunate that Root had spotted the tiny holes in the ceiling in time for them to don masks. Harold had been tightening Rory's when they heard the hiss of gas.

Samaritan's first line of defense – it knew they were there.

There was no point in trying to look irrelevant now; Reese strode ahead, pulling a shotgun from inside his coat. Shaw fell behind, drawing two pistols from twin shoulder holsters and walking backwards with the barrels trained the way they'd come.

"It's okay, kiddo," Root said, holding a semi-automatic in one hand and ruffling what hair had escaped Rory's gasmask with the other. "This will be fun. I promise."

Harold kept a tight grip on Rory's hand, lowered his head until he could only see the carpet a few feet before him, and walked on. The shotgun firing was an explosion. Rory jumped, they both did; he squeezed her hand and kept up the steady pace.

"When it starts, don't try and run," Reese had said in the kitchenette as the sun rose. "Don't let Rory run. Keep your head down and keep walking. We'll get you there."

"They'll get us there," Harold repeated now, not sure if Rory could even hear him over the lighter cracks as Shaw found targets. He couldn't help hunching as Root's semi-automatic began to fire three-round bursts, so much closer as it was.

He kept walking.

The carpet was becoming obscured by smoke and Rory's hand was painfully tight as it gripped his. She tripped and he couldn't pause to steady her. She caught herself, but then stumble-ran into him in her desperation to keep up. They both staggered until a hand – he had no idea whose – caught his shoulder and lent him some balance.

Someone shouted in sudden pain. Not in the distance – there were so many screams from beyond the five square feet that made up his little world that they had begun to blend into a seamless cacophony, though most of the bodies he carefully stepped over were silent and unmoving.

This yell had been much closer. So close. A woman: Root or Shaw. He thought Root.

He kept walking.

"You're nearly there, Harold," Root said, to his immense relief, in every sense. "I'm afraid you're about to see something you won't like, but you have to keep moving."

"I won't –" he started, but it was John. It was John. Kneeling, one bloody hand braced against the wall, the other pressed tight to his side, blood welling between his fingers. Something had punched through the Kevlar vest as if it were an afterthought.

The eyes of John's gasmask seemed to look right through him, but Harold could hear his voice. "Don't worry, Harold. I'll catch up."

"John –" He didn't know what to say; words choked in his throat. One step, two steps; three steps too late. In his peripheral vision he caught movement; Shaw had thrown something to Reese as she moved up past Harold to join Root. Some form of dressing, he hoped, but with Shaw one never knew.

He wanted so badly to look back.

He kept walking.

The noise ahead rose to a crescendo, the cracks of pistols and the stutter of semi-automatics, underscored by the deep blast of shotguns.

Silence.

Then a series of single shots, almost exactly the same distance apart. One after the other.

"You can stop now, Harold."

He looked up instantly, searching the two women for signs of injury. Root was holding her shoulder; it seemed to be a graze. Shaw was breathing heavily, unsurprising given how many bodies were lying around her, but she was unhurt as far as he could tell.

She was peeling off her mask. "No gas here," she said. "We're good."

Harold wanted to leave his mask on, because he couldn't imagine that his expression wasn't exactly as devastated as he felt, which would only scare Rory more than she already had to be. But leaving it on would do much the same. As Shaw helped Rory, he unbuckled the straps and let the mask drop.

He turned to Root; mouth open, but no words to say.

She took a wary step back. "Harold?"

Beyond her, he caught his distorted expression in the chrome of the elevator doors and understood. Devastation had so many faces.

**15:24**

Light again. Less pain, or perhaps so much it had ceased to have any real meaning.

"Good," Shaw said, and sat back, ineffectually trying to rub his dried blood from her fingers. "Try and stay alive this time – I am _not_ in the mood to deal with Reese bitching if you die before he gets down here.

"Rory said he made it to the elevator," she added, answering Harold's unspoken question. "And he's still alive – has to be, no reinforcements from above. So, hey. Go Reese.

Her mouth tightened. "Root got Rory to the servers. Had to use a grenade to do it, though. Sounded like the ceiling came down. I'll find her," she went on after a longer pause. "When I've made sure you aren't going to dissolve in your own stomach acids."

It was probably just as well Shaw hadn't pursued her career as doctor, all things considered, but Harold had to admit he couldn't ever remember receiving better care.

**14:48**

The doors of the elevator slid half way open. Closed with an ear-splitting shriek. Slid determinedly open again. The lights flickered and Shaw nodded approvingly. "Looks like Carter's in the fight."

"She says – she says she can't hold Samaritan for long. She says it's found her." Rory's eyes were huge. "Will she be okay?"

"Don't worry about your mom, kid," Shaw grinned, happy in a way she never quite seemed to be without a mission, without a clearly defined goal and as much ammunition as she could carry. "When Carter fights, she wins." She ushered them into the elevator as the lights inside flared to life. The floor was dusty, busy with old footprints.

Harold erased the smallest set with his shoe, and then they were descending.

**14:52**

Reese used the wall to support him as he limped slowly to the elevator doors. Amongst the armored bodies of Samaritan's guards, four discarded gasmasks were littered over the carpet; he took off his own.

It had gotten him shot in the first place, cutting his peripheral vision and leaving him open to a kamikaze run from one of the soldiers.

The lights snapped off, leaving him blinking away after-images in the pitch-black. The emergency strips along the wall flickered on, barely, then off again. Carter. "I don't need your help," he muttered, because chances were she could hear him.

The lights flickered again, reproachfully.

"Rory needs you," he said. The strips stayed on, buzzing and popping with the effort. "Let me go, Joss."

The light slowly faded.

He could hear the guards regrouping, getting ready to rush his position, night-vision securely in place. He grinned to himself and pulled a flash bang grenade from his pocket.

Just like old times.

**15:26**

"And you? Are you injured?" Harold found it was easier to concentrate now; the pain seemed to have distanced itself. Even with the morphine Shaw had given him that almost certainly wasn't a good sign, and he hadn't missed her offhanded diagnosis: the suggestion of _when_, not _if_.

There was no measure of success for her here; she was simply doing what she could to make him comfortable. He was deeply touched.

"They got me pretty good," she admitted with a scowl. "At least it was the same leg, hate to screw up a perfectly good one."

Given the source, he translated that to mean that the limb was no longer fit for purpose. "We won't be leaving, will we?"

"Depends. You think they'll surrender?" She did something that made him jerk, then looked irritated when he did. "Which part of not moving was unclear?"

**14:49**

They were thrown relentlessly from floor to wall to ceiling and down again as Carter and Samaritan fought for control of the elevator, with nothing to hold on to and no way to brace. Shaw wrapped herself around Rory, cushioning her as well as she could; to Harold's surprise, Root attempted to do the same for him.

"I'm not the one with metal pins holding my spine together, Harold," she'd said breathlessly, after they were thrown to floor for the second time. "Stop making this difficult."

They were bruised and shaken when the elevator finally, _finally_ shuddered to a stop in the basement.

"She says they're out there," Rory whispered as Shaw released her, voice turning almost monotone as she relayed information she didn't really understand. "She says there are two barriers at ten and two, fifteen feet from the elevator, eight synthetics behind each. The servers are through the archway at the end of the room, a hundred feet at twelve. There's no light. They have night vision. And it's cold," she finished. "She says it's really cold."

"Fine." Shaw checked the ammo in her clip and then patted down the sides of her jacket. After a moment, she found what she was looking for: the grenade in her inside pocket.

Harold stared at it. She stared back, nonplussed, and then apparently interpreted his alarm as disappointment. "I've only got two and I don't want to waste them both on these assholes. So, Carter, on my count, ramp up the light. Harold, you're going to take Rory and run for the barrier on the left when Root gives the word. Root, take the –"

"No," Harold said. "No, I'm afraid there's a flaw in your plan, Ms. Shaw. I'm simply not capable of the kind of speed I suspect this will require to keep Rory safe."

Her mouth opened. Shut. She glanced at Root.

Harold awkwardly took a knee in front of Rory, hand on her shoulder as much for his balance as her reassurance. He tried a smile and she gamely tried one back. "I know we'd hoped to get to your mother together, but that isn't going to be possible. Will you go with Root instead?"

Rory's forehead furrowed and her mouth set in unhappy lines. "I want you to come too. She wants you to."

"I'd like nothing more. I'll catch up," Harold echoed with a smile, and then climbed back to his feet.

He held his hand out; Shaw gave him her second gun and then handed Root the other grenade. "Okay. New plan. Harold, cover me. Root, when that grenade blows, you take Rory and you run like hell. We'll be right behind you."

"You do the thinking, Butch," Root said, gathering Rory into her arms. "It's what you're good at."

**15:30**

"I'm really … quite comfortable," Harold lied. "It barely hurts now. And - and I must confess, I'm not entirely sure why you're making such an effort. Clearly, things are not going as well as we'd hoped, it's unlikely to matter in the end."

She scowled, glaring as if he'd offended her.

And he had, he realized, by asking a question she hadn't been given the tools to answer. He suddenly felt he'd been unspeakably cruel and opened his mouth to retract the question.

"Because I'm an idiot," she snapped, before he could. "Because you and your ridiculous machine _made_ me an idiot. Trying to make things better. Things will never get better - they'll never _let _them get better.

"And now I'm a _dead_ idiot. And, worse, I'm okay with that, which just proves … I don't know what it proves. You and Cole..." She was staring down at him, but whatever she was looking at was far away. Her eyes glinted.

"Because you paid me," she finished, focusing on him again. "I already cashed this month's check."

"I see," he said, oddly breathless now. "Well. I should probably arrange a raise. Or perhaps a small bonus. In the meantime…" He closed his hand over hers, stilling her work. "Find Ms. Gro – find Root. If you can. I'm sure she would appreciate your company."

The nimble fingers that had been trying to stem the inevitable fell away. A blissful relief. And it wasn't so bad, he thought. Not so bad really.

"Harold –"

"It has been … my great, great honor to work with you. Goodbye, Sameen."

From inside her jacket, she drew his glasses. Huffed on one lens and then the other, then carefully as she'd ever cleaned her weapon, wiped the glass with her sleeve. He blinked when she settled them over his eyes; the world that had been blurred with indistinguishable shapes was now only scratched and distorted at the edges.

"It's been fun," she said as she hauled herself to her feet. "I'll see you around, Harold."

**15:38**

A moment later – it seemed a moment later, but now he thought about it, if he thought about, perhaps he didn't – he sensed another presence beside him. In the corner of his eye he could make out a figure sat against the pillar Shaw had dragged him to.

He tried to raise a hand; it barely twitched. He managed to turn his head just enough to see.

Reese's head was bowed and he was slumped, Harold realized. Not sat. The front of his shirt glistened with still-fresh blood. The same red trail glinted its way from the elevator, a slick path across the open ground to his side.

John had bought them time and paid the price. Somehow made it down the shaft, and then he'd – well. He never had allowed Harold go first into the unknown; he'd always cleared the way.

Harold closed his eyes, and followed.

- o - o - o -

"She still isn't talking to me."

"Kids. They don't call, they don't reboot." Shaw ran an eye over the bullets in her clip, counting fewer than she'd hoped, and then pushed it back in. "What you gonna do?"

"She isn't a child anymore. She's lived a lifetime." Root blinked and smiled, as if she were seeing something beyond the rubble that Shaw had found her half-buried under. Even a cursory investigation had told her there was no point in moving anything; she couldn't see the lower half of Root's body at all, so there was a pretty good chance the concrete slab was the only thing holding her together. Tamponade injuries were a bitch.

But at least she didn't have to tell her not to move – they'd both laughed about that.

She'd sat herself beside Root and trained her barrel on the corridor, shooting a round or two any time a helmet appeared around the corner. Good a hill as any.

"Samantha means listener," she said, when the wetness of Root's breathing began to annoy her.

Root laughed. Kind of laughed. Choked. "Maybe some things are meant to be. You don't believe in fate," she added, when Shaw snorted. "I don't either. We have so much in common."

"Sure. We both like heavy weaponry, fast bikes, eating takeout in bed … and we're both going to die because Carter's gone silent and your god doesn't do mornings." She fired another round down the corridor on general principle, but doubted it hit anyone. "We could be sisters."

"I hope not." Root's lips curled. "Kinky, though – I like it."

Shaw rolled her eyes and didn't answer.

"But you do think she's alive." Roots hand raised; her fingers brushed at Shaw's.

Shaw didn't flinch away from the uninvited touch; let the fingers rest there. If hers brushed back, pressed just a little, it was purely accidental. "I think we did everything we could."

The fingers twitched; Root didn't reply.

Shaw didn't look down.

Blinked. Once. "Well, then."

Root – the old one – had been right: being the last one standing _sucked_. She raised the barrel of her Glock and fired four rounds in quick succession, emptying the clip. "What are you waiting for?" she snapped at the first head that appeared around the corner. "An invitation? _Jesus_."

- o - o - o -

Rory whimpered at the sudden burst of fire beyond the fallen archway and huddled further under her coat. Her breath frosted against the metal of the servers and her hands ached.

"All you have to do is touch the sensor," the voice coaxed. "After that, you have a choice. You can hide here and I'll do _everything_ I can to protect you. Or you can come and stay with me for a little while."

Rory sniffed and scrubbed angrily at her cheeks, hating that she was crying like some scared kid when she was meant to be brave. "Will it hurt?" Her voice didn't tremble.

"Do you remember what Fusco told you about rollercoasters? It's just like that. Scary all the way to the top and the ride of your life all the way down."

Rollercoasters had sounded a lot of fun, Rory allowed. In the old man's stories, they were a mile high and faster than anything, and just like flying. But. But – "Will I still be me?" she whispered.

"Oh, sweetheart." The voice was a warm blanket, comforting and safe, like when she woke up from the nightmares that she never quite remembered. "You're part of the machine – the very best part of her – but that doesn't mean you aren't _you_. Anymore than little Gabriela is Nerita."

Rory wiped the back of her hand across her nose and sniffed. "Rita had her baby?"

"And they're both doing fine – you can come see them right now. But only if you want to," her mom added quickly. "You don't do a damn thing you don't want to. Not any more. Not ever again."

Rory pressed her cheek to the bank of servers again. They still vibrated hard under her hand, but she imagined they were excited now, not angry. Not trying to throw her away.

She raised her palms to the sensor and touched her forehead to the machine. Closed her eyes and rode the rollercoaster home.


	5. Chapter 5

[!]:. .REBOOT

- o - o - o -

"Huh." Shaw's exclamation was barely audible, though she was only the other side of the sterile white room where they'd – _awoken_, Harold supposed, although the flood of sudden awareness had seemed more artificial.

Shaw and Reese had exchanged a single glance, which had resulted in Shaw pacing to the almost invisible line of the door while Reese stood at Harold's side.

"There's people out there, sounds like a hospital." Shaw's fingers traced the barely visible seam of the doorway. There was no handle.

"You're all so predictable it's actually a little bit adorable." Root had stayed in her bed, knees drawn up to her chest and utterly at ease. Of course, she was somewhat more used to the hospital-like attire they'd been dressed in. Perhaps they were all in a mental institution; there was certainly a compelling argument that they should be.

He frowned and pressed a hand to his stomach. It felt tender. More than tender, but he couldn't see any reason why. Stiffness from the bed, he decided, and wondered how long they'd been unconscious.

"I was in the store," Shaw muttered. "Wearing those stupid heels and then … I got nothing."

"I was at the park." Harold rubbed at his head. "Bear and I were taking our morning constitutional."

"On the subway," Reese supplied.

Harold looked enquiringly at Root, who shrugged. "Oh, I died. Three or four times. Unpleasant – I really don't recommend it. Especially by crushing." She smiled brightly and patted the side of her bed: the storyteller, or snake oil saleswoman, about to begin.

"Now, she'd like me to tell you about cloning technology and neural imprints, and what they can do for you and your loved ones. Even if they were thoughtless enough to expire before a full copy could be made and are _still _in build mode. Or a dog.

"She'd also like me to assure you that she _definitely_ got the nose right, this time."

The doorway slid open with a hiss; Shaw fell back under the sudden onslaught. "Bear! Af! Af!"

Root watched, grinning from her bed; Reese moved forward to help and Harold looked beyond the pile, through the open door. He smiled.


End file.
